What Did You Leave Behind by Solmaz Sharif

What Did You Leave Behind

A pool

lined

with evergreens,

 

needles falling

into the water,

floor

 

painted a milky

jade. A car

in the driveway.

 

A mother.

 

Another mother.

 

A cockatiel

in the hallway

squawking

 

next to the plastic

slippers.

Glass

 

after beveled glass.

Secret

after beveled secret.

 

Letters from a

first crush

now dead.

 

Killed.

We wanted

to be asked

 

of these things.

We spent

much of our lives

 

imagining.

 

To tell of them

was to live

again.

 

We rathered

and rathered,

 

scraping the soft

moss

off

 

the gravestones

of our early

dead—